NRATV Blames Trump's Russia Scandal On Plot By "Obama Loyalists" To "Destroy America From The Inside"

The National Rifle Association’s news program blamed the Trump administration’s growing Russia scandal on a “concerted effort with Obama loyalists” aiming to “undermine the president every step of the way” and “destroy America from the inside.”

The New York Times reported on February 14 that according to four current and former U.S. officials, members of Trump’s presidential campaign “had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials,” and that “American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee.” The Times report came on the heels of a Washington Post article reporting that “national security adviser Michael Flynn privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States during the month before President Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump officials.”

That the NRA responded to the growing scandal with a baseless conspiracy theory is the latest evidence that the gun group is using its media arm as a pro-Trump propaganda tool.

During the February 15 edition of NRATV’s Live Updates with Grant Stinchfield, host Grant Stinchfield claimed that the leaks are a “concerted effort with Obama loyalists” who are “trying to destroy America from the inside.” He went on to suggest that Congress should identify and purge the supposed Obama loyalists from government":

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): You know there’s a big issue in Washington now, all this discussion over what's been going on with Russia, the Trump administration, Michael Flynn, the national security adviser, who is now out. You've made a career of being able to communicate with people, many times being able to communicate with criminals. I believe what is going on in Washington is you have a concerted effort with Obama loyalists inside these bureaucratic agencies, from the Justice Department to the intelligence community, trying to undermine the president every step of the way. Is there anything Congress can do to root out those loyalists who are really, I believe, trying to destroy America from the inside?

[...]

STINCHFIELD: All right, so that brings us to the same Americans disrupting service -- many are still operating inside government. Is there a way to get -- to root those out? Especially these ones who are issuing these leaks to TheNew York Times, no less. How do you root them out?

Stinchfield previously claimed that President Obama accomplished his secret plan to “inflict harm on America.”

NRATV, a rebranding of NRA News that launched in October with the stated mission of providing “the most comprehensive video coverage of Second Amendment issues, events and culture anywhere in the world,” has repeatedly gone to extreme lengths, including pushing blatant falsehoods, to defend President Trump and his actions. The outlet frequently attacks the press on behalf of Trump, even going so far as to label protected speech reporting on the president as a plot to destroy the United States, “anti-patriotic,” and an “assault against freedom and the Constitution.”

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CydneyHargis
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Cydney Hargis is a guns and public safety researcher at Media Matters, where she has worked since July 2015. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from The George Washington University, with a minor in political science, and previously interned at Coalition To Stop Gun Violence.